Pei Yining had just bought some food and was on her way back to the hotel when she spotted Xu Nianhua asking for directions on the roadside. She quickly shouted, waving at her, and trotted up to her with a look of disbelief, "Nianhua, are you lost?"
Pei Yining stared at Xu Nianhua, feeling as if her eyes were playing tricks on her, creating illusions.
She always thought Xu Nianhua was capable of anything. She was good at studying, strong in foreign languages, cooked delicious food, could even grow her own bean sprouts, make mung bean jelly—Pei Yining had come to believe Xu Nianhua was invincible.
But now, she was lost.
Xu Nianhua looked a bit embarrassedly at Pei Yining and said, "Maybe because it’s my first time going out."
Her voice was somewhat weak. She had thought she wouldn’t wander far, just stroll nearby, and wouldn’t get lost. Besides, she had felt her little uncle’s house should be easy to find.
However, she had overestimated her sense of direction.
Pei Yining told herself she shouldn’t laugh, but she couldn’t help it. She glanced at the address and said, "You don’t have to ask others, I’ll take you there."
Xu Nianhua didn’t speak, just looked skeptically at her. This was her first time coming here, too, right?
"Coincidentally, I was just on this street yesterday." Pei Yining had been wandering around quite a bit these days.
"Oh yes, something came up these past few days. I was supposed to meet up with you, but..." Xu Nianhua looked somewhat apologetically at Pei Yining.
Pei Yining waved it off, "No worries, it’s a good thing you didn’t come these past two days, otherwise it would’ve been an outright war."
"What happened?" Xu Nianhua looked at her curiously.
Pei Yining briefly explained the events of the past few days. When she started talking about Cheng Hao and Zou Yaru breaking up, Xu Nianhua was so shocked she interrupted, "That can’t be right. They were so lovey-dovey, how could they break up just like that?"
On her way here, Cheng Hao had spoken about Zou Yaru with such sweetness!
And it had only been a few days?
Breaking up felt like some kind of fantasy to her.
"Nianhua, you’re out of the loop," Pei Yining said as she explained how Gu Junhe mistook someone else for Pei Yicheng, cursed him out, and the decisive way Zou Yaru broke up with him, also mentioning Zou Yaru’s recent engagement news.
So feelings can change just like that, and marrying someone else on a whim?
It all sounded so much like playing house.
"What’s the name of Zou Yaru’s fiancé again?" Xu Nianhua suddenly asked.
Pei Yining tilted her head while thinking, then finally said, "Gu Junhe. Thinks he’s so handsome, so wealthy, and even dared to insult my brother!"
As soon as she mentioned Gu Junhe, she seemed wishing she could gnash her teeth in anger.
"Good for you," Xu Nianhua said to Pei Yining, giving her a thumbs up. "You’re so protective of your brother, he must be really touched, right?"
"My brother has always protected me since we were little, so I’ve got to protect him too." Pei Yining said with pride. Although their relationship hadn’t been as close as before since their mother left and due to Aunt Wan’s influence, she still remembered that in middle school, when a boy bullied her, her brother didn’t say a word and beat the bully down, then declared that whoever mess with her would end up like that boy on the ground.
In the end, nobody dared bully her.
She would always remember that scene, her brother’s face was both cold and fierce, yet she found it incredibly warm.
"What happened after that?" Xu Nianhua continued to ask.
When she heard that Cheng Hao was willing to humble himself before his family and borrow two-hundred thousand yuan for Zou Yaru, she truly felt sorry for Cheng Hao. All the love he gave was squandered by Zou Yaru.